When Chase Utley is healthy, should he get the second base job back from Cesar Hernandez?

General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has never been afraid to speak his mind and that's been more evident than ever in the past eight months.

Maybe knowing it's highly unlikely he has a job three months from now — no matter what he does at this month's trade deadline — made him completely remove any filter he had. Whatever it is, he ruffled feathers again this past week.

After making comments during the offseason that the team would be better off without Ryan Howard, then saying "fans don't understand the game," in May, Amaro was brutally honest again, this time regarding Chase Utley's future.

Amaro didn't give a non-answer like so many front-office suits and managers do when was asked in Los Angeles if Utley was Philadelphia's second baseman once his ankle is healthy and he returns from the disabled list, where's he's been since June 23.

"Not for me, he's not," Amaro told reporters. "Cesar Hernandez is our best second baseman. I would assume that Cesar would be our second baseman. I think that's fair."

Joe Panik had four hits, including a two-run homer, and drove in three runs. Justin Maxwell...

(Rick Eymer)

Many around baseball, especially fans in the Philadelphia area, took issue with Amaro for his position, although, it shouldn't be a surprise. Interim manager Pete Mackanin initially offered a similar answer to that question during the last homestand before slightly backtracking.

"I would like to think that Cesar has proven that he deserves a chance to be the everyday second baseman," Mackanin said. "That remains to be seen. I don't know. I don't want to get ahead of myself. Let's just wait to see when Chase is healthy and how he feels and we'll go from there."

Finally, at least two years too late, the Phillies have committed to playing some of their younger players to evaluate and see who can be part of the future plans. There was trading Jimmy Rollins and giving Freddy Galvis a chance at shortstop; since June 6 starting Cameron Rupp at catcher more often than Carlos Ruiz; and now they're doing it at second base and would be silly to reverse course.

This season, the 25-year-old Hernandez has played more than 66 major league games for the first time in his career and he's showing that he may very well be the second baseman of the future for the Phillies, which would make the rebuilding process a tad bit easier.

Entering Friday's series opening game against the Giants, Hernandez was hitting .288 with 19 RBIs, 31 runs scored and 12 stolen bases. The latter three are already career highs by a landslide and the batting average is one point off his career high, set in 2013 when he played in just 34 games.

Most of his damage this season has come over his last 25 games, a period in which he received 23 starts. He hit .354, knocked in 10 runs, scored 16 runs and stole 11 of his career 13 bases.

Obviously that's a relatively small sample size, although Hernandez has credited his recent success to consistent playing time and not having to worry about his role when he comes to the park each day. But any team, rebuilding or not, would be crazy to replace a young player that's one of the hottest offensively in baseball over the past 30 days with a 36-year-old hitting .179, even if the franchise did revolve around that player at one point.

While Utley's $15 million vesting option for 2016, which becomes guaranteed if he has 500 plate appearances this season, was an issue earlier this season, his DL stint has all but made that point moot heading into the All-Star Break since he'd barely be able to reach that total if he returned now and played every single game the rest of the way. If he doesn't hit that mark, the Phillies can buy out what turns into a club option for $2 million.

FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal offered his own thoughts on what Amaro could have said.

He thought Amaro's comments should have went something like, "It's too soon to answer that. Chase has meant a lot to this franchise. Cesar Hernandez is playing well. We'll see where we are when Chase comes off the DL. So much can happen between now and then."

Rosenthal even went as far as saying an apology from Amaro to Utley "should be coming any minute now."

But Rosenthal is mostly wrong. And just like when Amaro made comments about certain fans not understanding the game, the general manager is mostly right. The only thing Amaro has to apologize about here is not first informing Utley of the team's plans at second, which he told reporters he failed to do before making things public.

Utley should be shown respect as the sun sets on his career, no matter how bad his performance on the field gets. He's respected the game, he's respected the franchise and he's done nothing but give his all from the first day he slipped on the red pinstripes.

However, there's nothing wrong with management saying what's been written on the wall for the past couple weeks — unless there's an injury or a drastic change in Hernandez's current production, he's the Phillies' starting second baseman whether Utley is healthy or not.